


Right Place, Right Time

by Azzandra



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Beauty and the Beast plot, M/M, adventures in moral relativity!, kink meme fill, quests and curses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-11-25 00:21:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/633112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Karkat Vantas has been turned into a beast by an evil fairy and Dave Strider is the only person who can help him break the curse. Just not in the way you'd expect.</p>
<p>(Yeah, the premise of this story is based on a fairytale, so there's pretty much no way this summary won't sound cheesy.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. “I was suffering in silence, and couldn't tell my frightful secret.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote a [drabble for a request on the kink meme](http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/39135.html?thread=41686751#cmt41686751), and people wanted me to expand on this AU. So here I go expanding on it! I will strive to meet expectations.

Your name is Dave Strider and you are faced with a slight conundrum. **  
  
**You are hanging by your rapidly straining fingers onto a root over a ravine which is deep enough to kill you. Or maybe just maim you a bit, but you're not exactly wildly enthused with either possibility at the moment. **  
  
**That's not your conundrum though. It's whether or not to yell for help. On any given day, this wouldn't be an issue. No matter how cool you are, you don't actually want to end up literally cool, i.e. a bloodied corpse for the woodland critters to nibble on. A bit of yelling and loss of composure would be perfectly acceptable if it meant you got to live long enough to make up for it. **  
  
**No, the issue here is that the only one you know is within earshot is the very monster that led to you ending up in this position. And when you say 'led', you mostly mean 'chased you through the forest planning to chomp a chunk out of your admittedly very attractive ass'. So now you're faced with the choice of either falling to your possible death, or calling out for almost completely certain death. Yay. What a great day you're having. It's one for the books. You could just-- **  
  
**Oh shitfuckshit, your hands almost slipped. Holy flying duckfuck on a cracker, that was close. **  
  
**You've grabbed on to a rocky outcrop now, much more solid than the root, but there's rustling nearby, and by the echo still ringing in your ears from the ravine, you might have emitted a manly shriek just then. Uh-oh. **  
  
**Well, the sound bounced a lot, maybe it wasn't going to be able to tell where you are by-- **  
  
**Well fuck. It found you. It's standing over you on the edge of the ravine. You didn't get a decent look at it before, since your sense of self-preservation overrode your natural curiosity and you started running, but now you can gander at the freakish creature all you want. **  
  
**It has a troll torso, and a troll head, albeit with unnaturally red eyes and nubby horns (and an awful nest of hair, but you're putting that one down to poor grooming habits rather than monster genes). Its hands are crab pincers. From the waist down, its body is that of a snake, shiny red scales broken up by the occasional black, but inexplicably, there are crab legs emerging from the sides of the snake body, three pairs skittering against the ground, serving no discernible purpose. You're never seen such a zoological clusterfuck in your life. It looks like something from one of your sister's books. **  
  
**Aaaaannnnd now he's reaching down towards you. **  
  
**Welp, it's been a good run. Nobody can say your life was wasted in the pursuit of shitty art and frivolous ironic bullshit. **  
  
**The pincer comes near to your face and you close your eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable goring. **  
  
**But instead, you feel the claw slip down the back of your shirt. Whoa, hold on, this is both gross and unseemly. Then the claw tightens and you feel yourself experiencing what might technically be called strangulation. **  
  
**It's only when you're flat on your back on solid ground that you realize the monster grabbed the back of your shirt and pulled you up to safety (...safety? Well, you're not dead _yet_ , at least). **  
  
“** You had better not be dead, you bulgesucking vermin, I just fucking saved you!” the monster hisses, poking at your cheek with its pincer. Ow. “If I knew you were going to keel over anyway, I would have pushed you off instead.” **  
  
**Alright, Dave, you are clearly having a nervous breakdown here, because a crabtrollsnakemonster appears to be talking to you after having _saved you from almost certain death_ , and you're pretty sure that's not what crabtrollsnakemonsters usually do with delicious little boys. You're just guessing here, but you think these sort of interactions end with less talking and more feasting on human flesh. **  
  
“** Cut it out, dude, you're going to poke someone's eye out with that thing,” you say, pushing the pincer away and sitting up. Ravine on one side, monster on the other. Well, you know you're not going to talk the ravine out of possibly killing you, time to chat up the monster. **  
  
“** Whatever, 'dude',” the monster returns with as much derision as he can muster. Hint: it's a lot of derision. “This is all your fault anyway, fuckstick.” **  
  
“** Uh, excuse me? Let's rewind a bit. If I'm not mistaken, I wasn't the one chasing an innocent passer-by through the woods,” you say. **  
  
“** Fuck you. Fuck you right in your stupid dork shades.” He scowls. “I was supposed to kill you, dipshit. What the fuck were you doing falling off cliffs like a complete douchebag?” **  
  
“** Okay,one, it's not a cliff, it's a ravine--” **  
  
“** _Fuck you twice, assdouche,_ **”** he mutters under his breath. **  
  
“** \--and two, if you really wanted to kill me, like you said, you would have pushed me off, no prob, look at that gravity go, A-plus, would splatter again. So why didn't you?” **  
  
“** Shut up! I should gut you right here and make a hat from your liver,” he hisses, clacking his claws threateningly. **  
  
**Except, well, you're willing to bet he's all bark by this point. **  
  
“** Alright, then let me ask you another thing. Why would you want to kill me in the first place?” you say. **  
  
“** Do you think I want to kill you?” he screams at you. “Other than the usual murderous rage you inspire in me by being a fantastic asshole, I don't! I don't want to kill anyone! But I have to!” **  
  
“** Okay, but _why_?” you ask, keeping your voice reasonable. This takes a lot of wind out of the monster's anger. **  
  
“** Because if I don't, I won't be able to turn back,” he says, voice cracking on the last word. “You think I was born this much of a freak?” **  
  
“** Uhhh...” **  
  
“** The answer's no, douchenozzle!” **  
  
“** Obviously. I mean. Yeah. Of course.” Sure. Naturally. As everybody well knows. **  
  
“** Oh, fuck you in the ear clot,” he says, flashing his fangs. “I was cursed, okay? I was a fuck-up as a troll, so I was cursed to be this thing until I prove myself.” **  
  
“** By killing people?” **  
  
“** By proving I'm remorseless and resolute, as all proper trolls should be,” he says. You can tell he's parroting, though. **  
  
“** _By killing people?!_ **”** you repeat, because this is a point you want to be completely clear on. **  
  
“** Look, I didn't write the terms, okay? That's what she said. I'd turn back after I killed eight people. Troll or human or... whatever. Just. Eight deaths and I can put this thing behind me.” **  
  
“** So how many so far?” **  
  
“** Never mind how many!” he huffs, clacking his pincers again. “It isn't any of your business!” **  
  
“** It's zero, isn't it? You haven't managed to kill anyone yet,” you guess. He flushes red with embarrassment. Ohoho, this is priceless. Big scary monster with a gooey center. **  
  
“** Shut the fuck up, you don't know anything,” he mutters and curls his body in on itself, turning his torso away from you. **  
  
**And now you've made him pout. D'aww. **  
  
“** Okay, look dude, I'm not usually in the business of charity, but you did sort of save my ass, I guess, even though you're the reason my ass was in need of saving in the first place--” **  
  
“** What do you want, you longwinded bastard?” He sighs, utterly exhausted. **  
  
“** How about I help you out?” **  
  
“** Help out with what?” **  
  
“** You know with the—hrrrk,” you vocalize, making a cutting motion in front of your neck. **  
  
**He turns to look at you, his bright red eyes so wide, they look ready to pop out and head for the hills. **  
  
“** Oh my god, you want to help me kill people? Are you sick? Humans aren't supposed to want to kill people!” **  
  
“** Yeah, did you buy that bullshit from the same witch who told you trolls had to want to kill people all the time?” you snort. **  
  
“** She was a fairy, thank you very much, and that still doesn't answer my question!” **  
  
“** Well, what can I say,” you shrug. “You're wrong. Plenty of people walking around in need of a good killing out there. Eye for an eye, oldest rule in the book. You should get out more, you obviously don't know anything about humans. Or trolls, for that matter.” **  
  
“** Why? Why would you do this?” **  
  
**Because your life sucks, you think. Because it's not fair you got punished for being a better person than some batshit fairy. Because you saved my life. Because you're the kind of guy who _would_ save my life. **  
  
**But you don't say those things. Instead, you reach inside your pocket for your watch. **  
  
**The Lady With Scales chose you to carry out her mission, and it can't be a coincidence that after passing through this forest for hundreds of times without a hitch, it's today, just as you're returning from her shrine, just after she entrusted you with this mission, that you run into this creature who has been so deeply wronged. She said you'd want to do it. She said you'd choose to do it. **  
  
“** Because I owe you, dude,” you say instead. “You saved my life, so I'm going to help save yours. And you have to admit, your current strategy sucks. You're never going to be able to kill anyone at this rate. And even if you do, it'll probably be some poor, saintly grandmother with a dozen grandchildren to miss her and her fuzzy cookie sweaters, or whatever it is grandmothers make for their grandkids.” **  
  
**He snorts. **  
  
“** But I can promise you that whoever you kill will have it coming,” you say, brushing your fingers over the watch. You can feel its ticking, and the quiet hum of power just beneath. The Lady said the watch would know when someone's time of judgment is at hand, and it would tell you. **  
  
**The monster still looks hesitant. You extend a hand, which he eyes warily. **  
  
“** Dave Strider,” you introduce yourself. **  
  
**He scoffs. **  
  
“** If you don't give me your name, I'll just call you 'Pooky'.” **  
  
“** Urgh! Fine, fine. Karkat Vantas.” **  
  
**He extends a pincer carefully, and you shake it. **  
  
“** Deal?” you ask. **  
  
“** Deal,” Karkat sighs. ****  
  
Neither of you has any idea what you just signed up for.

 

*

 

At the side of the road leading into Skaia City, there is a small shrine dedicated to the Lady With Scales. You've passed it every single day on your way from your home village to the city, and until now, you have not once given more than one thought: _what an eyesore._

It's an L-shaped piece of rock, roughly carved with poorly-stylized dragons. If it isn't enough that the shrine is painted _teal_ of all colors, some poor sap with more piety than common sense also draped red cloth all over it. The Lady isn't even a real goddess, or a spirit. She's some sort of bizarre patron saint of petty vengeance. The kind of people willing to kneel at her shrine and ask for justice from her are usually a sorry lot, so you're not exactly surprised they also have such gaudy taste in decorations.

You don't mean to give the shrine a second look, but that's not how it works out today. When you pass it in the morning, you turn your head towards it like someone yelled your name. You stop in your tracks before you can realize that you didn't hear anything.

“You're losing it, Strider,” you tell yourself. “Too much heavy thinking before bedtime, that shit gave you indigestion of the soul, or something. You need to leave the philosophizing to someone who's Lalondier than you and return to your wholesome diet of irony and extended metaphors.”

Then you turn around and continue on your way. That should be that.

But it isn't.

Instead, you spend the whole day thinking about the shrine. Your work doesn't suffer, exactly. You have your routine down pat by this point, and you would have to be pretty goddamn distracted to forget how to operate the simple printing press. You only have to pull like one lever, and even Jake fucking English can remember how to do that. But even your usually unperceptive co-worker does notice you're off your game.

“Something bothering you, old chap?” he asks.

“You know what, English? I have no fucking clue,” you reply, because while you've been thinking heavily for the past few hours, you'll be damned if you can remember what about.

You're not sure you want to know. The night before, you came across one of Roxy's booze caches by accident, and you discovered you were a lightweight, because it only took a few sips to give you an existential crisis. Thankfully out of sight of everyone else, but still. Shit was embarrassing. You were actually worried you would never amount to anything ever, which is such a ridiculous concern for a laid back and aloof dude like you, who doesn't care about what people think of him or whether or not he makes the slightest bit of difference in the world.

By the time you get off work, you make yourself forget about the shrine. You only remember it again when you pass by and you get the same weird feeling like someone yelled your name. This time, the feeling is accompanied by an explosion of taste in your mouth, like a sour citric fruit. Not quite lemony. If you were to associate that taste with anything, it would probably be the feeling of frustration, which is a completely pointless and inexplicable train of thought.

Okay, you see what's happening here. You've heard about this kind of stuff.

You kneel down in front of the shrine, not because you want to, but because you know that if you don't, this ploy for attention will escalate and you just don't have time for that sort of shit in your life right now. Not that you wouldn't be up for it on any other day, just for irony's sake. You think you could get a lot of mileage out of deconstructing the classical hero's journey and bluh, bluh, whatever. You're not in the mood for the usual bullshit today. You want to finish this quick, like ripping a bandage off a wound. An ugly teal-and-red wound that's inflamed and scabby. You're going to man up and eat the scab now.

“What do you want?” you say, addressing the question to the sculpted dragon right in front of you. It looks like it's grinning from ear to ear, and the artist spent a lot of the time that could have been spent learning things like anatomy and perspective on lovingly rendering each and every single tiny fang in the dragon's mouth. Priorities! That sculptor sure did have them.

You don't hear voices or a sense of doom or whatever cliché you were meant to experience. Instead, your answer is a sweet tangy taste in your mouth. Satisfaction. Welcome. With a hint of it's about time.

“Look, this is a completely counterproductive way of holding a conversation,” you say low.

Did the dragon's grin widen, or are you imagining it? You're imagining it. Definitely imagining it. In an ironic way, of course. Because you don't actually believe sculptures can move.

Look down. Look down. Look down.

It's an insistent tug at your mind again. You look down.

At the base of the shrine, people have left a lot of junk. You feel accurate in describing it like that, because none of it is stuff anyone would want. A spool of red thread. A single shoe. Half a pamphlet on domesticating hedgehogs. A chipped teacup. And so on. You could probably turn your pockets inside out and have more valuable lint fall out.

“What am I looking at?”

Slowly, one syllable at a time, soundless words are projected on your mind's eye:

**Tick. Tock.**

There's a pocket watch. It looks utterly non-descript, and when you open it, you're absolutely not surprised to see it doesn't work. The three hands are completely immobile. It's stuck at five past four. And also fifteen seconds past the minute. That's probably not significant in any way.

“Okay, yeah, nice piece of junk. You want me to get it fixed or something? Are you tired of being late to all your important appointments? What about it?”

You don't get an answer right away. There's a slight taste of citrus in your mouth again.

**Don't you want to do something important?**

You flinch, because the question rings clear in your mind.

“Now you're feeling talkative, huh?” you mutter. “Where was all this chattiness when I was gagging on lime?”

**Don't you? Tell me I'm wrong, Dave.**

“You're wrong.”

**No I'm not.**

“Okay, why did you tell me to tell you you're wrong if you were just going to contradict me anyway?”

**Narrative mandate.**

“...What?”

**Pay attention, Dave, this is about you, not me!**

“Well, I think it's a _little_ about you. It's not a coincidence that all this dirt I'm caking on the knees of my pants is coming from right in front of your shrine.”

**Dave, as you have recently realized, if you carry on as you have, you will never amount to anything.**

“I am so glad we're having this chat,” you say. “Ecstatic, I might say. What a great idea. This sure made my day.”

**There's no need for your human sarcasm at the moment. Kindly can it. Can it for sustenance during the long winter months, when your freshness will provide the nutrition you will need to survive until spring.**

“You're being pretty saucy for someone who wasn't even using actual words at the beginning of this conversation.”

**I am sorry, being in your head is having this effect on me. I can't pull out a word without a thousand more following after it, like taking a book from the bottom of a sloppily-built stack and having the rest fall on top of me, crushing me under their elephantine weight. Your mind is a cluttered mess, Dave. You really should have tidied up a bit before letting anyone in!**

You grunt. “Okay, so what do you want?” There, short and to the point. You are totally not being contrary just out of spite.

There's something like a cackle in your mind. No words, just a sense of amusement bouncing off the insides of your skull like a creepy echo in a very dark and dank cave.

**We're going to do such important things together, coolkid! You'll see!**

“Hold on, I didn't agree to anything yet.”

**But you will. The writing's on the wall, Dave. The walls of your mind, that is. Which I am looking at as I speak. Look, it says right here: 'will do as Terezi says because he knows she's right about everything forever.'**

“Who's Terezi?”

**That's me, dumpass!**

“...You have a name?”

**Of course I have a name. That's a silly question, Dave. You should apologize for it.**

“Right, I'm leaving now--”

**No! I haven't given you your gift yet, Dave!**

You pause, curiosity getting the better of you.

“Yeah, okay, far be it from me to refuse free shit. It is free, right? I don't have to sell my soul or give you an eyeball or anything?”

**As delicious as that sounds, I will pass for now. No, look at the watch. Open the lid.**

You do as instructed. The watch is frozen, but you notice an engraving on the inside of the lid.

“Okay, spooky. That wasn't there before. Is that my gift?”

**Sort of! It is my symbol. My... You don't have the word for it, let me show you in letters: L 1 B R 4.**

“Two of those are numbers, you realize.”

**Eh, close enough. You get what I'm saying, don't you?**

“Your Libra?”

**Yes! Good. You have exceeded my wildest expectations of your assumed intelligence.**

“So happy to know I rate slightly above a brain-damaged puppy in the learning new tricks department,” you mutter. “So what's my gift?”

**Listen for it, Dave. Listen to the watch.**

The watch isn't making any noise, though. When you put it to your ear, it remains stoically silent.

“Hate to break it to you, dragonmistress, but this thing's busted. I'll have more luck finding ticks in a fussy spinster's freshly washed pillowcase.”

Your mouth tastes like grapefruit and ash, with an underscore of dissatisfaction.

**You're doing it wrong!**

“I think after all this time, I have a pretty good idea about how to use my ears.”

**No. You are listening for the movement of metal gears within an encasement of metal and glass in your hand. I asked you to listen to the watch. Listen!**

You try again. You put the watch to your ear. You still don't hear anything, but you make an attempt at listening for whatever she wants you to listen for. You hear... the sounds of the road. The crunch of dirt under someone's feet as they pass behind you. Distant voices. Cart wheels and neighing horses. The sound of children laughing and shrieking in the distance. A bird crowing somewhere above you.

**Listen listen listen**

You hear... not much else. Silence. Nothing underneath the sounds of the city. You feel the pain in your knees and the clinging heat of summer making you sweat.

**You almost have it, you almost heard, listen.**

You hear... not your heartbeat. The sounds are too evenly spaced. You hear... tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. So distant that the sound of it could get lost under the sound of blood rushing through your body. But now that you've noticed it, you can't stop hearing it. Tick-tock-tick-tock.

“What is it?” you ask in a whisper.

**It is the time of judgment which awaits everyone. We are going to be so busy, Dave, you have no idea.**

 

*

 

“You live under a bridge?”

Karkat looks at you like he'll gut you if you say another word.

“You're a troll and you live under a bridge,” you state very calmly, and definitely not laughing your ass off as a weaker mortal might. This is the most ironic shit you've experienced in years, and that's saying something, when you add in the fact that you just got handed a noble quest for justice today.

Karkat raises his chin in challenge.

“Looks... scenic,” you say cautiously, as you prod at a dirty newspaper with the tip of your foot.

“Shut up.”

Well, okay, the way you said it made you sound like an ass, but you really do like the look of it. The bridge is not very big, it's one of the old stone ones, built in a time when even bridges in the middle of the woods were decorated with tons of unnecessary frippery. It's old and weather-worn now, the sculpted arches and decorative details covered by moss or eaten away by the rain. The creek it goes over is dried up so badly, that there's only a pathetic trickle left of it, a quarter of its usual size. Leaves Karkat more room under the bridge, where he's hollowed himself out a cozy burrow and gathered a pile of crap. Newspapers, tattered pieces of cloth, broken toys, all sorts of things people throw out usually.

But the thin shafts of light threading between trees, the gentle arch of the bridge, the grassy embankments, the little sprinkle of wildflowers all around it, they all make you itch for a camera right now. There's something quietly melancholic about the image of Karkat standing next to his makeshift home, brittle and defensive.

Karkat frowns and you realize you've been silent for a long time.

“So this is where you can find me,” he tells you. “Don't go spreading it around, I'm not looking to have people drop in on me. I'm not a fucking tourist attraction, okay?”

You shrug. “Got it, you're not in the mood for digging out the fine china for the guests.”

“Just memorize the fucking location, you tool. If you forget where I live, you're on your own. Don't think I'll wander the woods like a heartbroken war widow searching for you, or any shit like that.”

“Dude, this road here leads right back to my village,” you point out.

It's more of a dirt path nowadays, but you recognize it. It's the road leading up to the abandoned manor, where that old rainbow drinker used to live before being forcibly evicted by some very displeased villagers. Nobody from Derse uses it anymore, seeing as there's nothing interesting in this direction other than this old bridge and the few walls left after the manor burned down in a 'tragic incident'.

“Oh,” he says with a blink. “Well good, I guess this makes it easier for a dry-pan douchebag like you to find his way back here.”

“If I forget how roads work, I can always follow the pitter-patter of angry little crablegs stalking through the woods.”

He huffs. “So when are we getting started?”

“You're sure in a hurry.”

“Gee, I wonder why?” he deadpans, gesturing at his body.

“Okay, I got you, but you can't rush this thing, man. Look here, you know what this is?”

You take out the watch from your pocket and approach, presenting it to him. It hums in your hand, though not literally. It's also warm, but that might just be your body-heat. You can hear-feel-taste its steady tick-tocks.

He doesn't look impressed.

“It's a watch,” he says.

“It's a delicate piece of equipment,” you say.

“I guess that explains why it's broken already.”

“It's not broken crabbycakes, it's just operating according to alternate values of functionality.”

“That's a complicated way of saying 'broken',” Karkat snorts.

“Alright, you'll have to trust me on this.”

“Of course I trust you, what sort of idiot wouldn't trust a stranger who recently admitted he's looking forward to killing people? I mean that's just _common sense_.”

You give him a look over your shades, like _really dude? Are you in any position to complain here?_ But you can understand his skepticism. He's not saying anything you wouldn't say if your positions were reversed, except maybe you'd at least go along with it ironically, if nothing else.

He's about a head taller than you, so you gesture for him to come closer to the ground. He flattens himself further down on his snake-belly, crablegs sinking into the dirt for balance, and like this, he's actually a hair shorter than you, but at least you're on the same level now.

You bring the watch closer to him, step into his space. His claws open and close soundlessly, uncertainly.

“Try holding it for a bit.”

He looks distrusting, but he raises his pincers. They're not really made for holding stuff like regular old-fashioned hands, but you put the watch on the flat side of one claw and he puts the other over it to keep it from falling off.

“What do you feel?” you ask.

“Complete mortification over this pointless exercise,” he replies without missing a beat. Then he opens his mouth to say something, but hesitates. “It feels warm, sort of.”

“But not like real heat.”

“No. It's a magical watch, isn't it? You're going to rely on a magical watch to tell you who to kill?” He scowls at you then, his expression half-epiphany and half indignant rage. “That's your big idea?” his voice rises. “You're going to let a fucking trinket make life and death decisions for you? You're going to rely on some enchanted piece of crap to decide who lives and who dies? You despicable bulgegobbling shit pustule!”

He fumbles with the watch and you grab it from him quickly, hopping back out of range of his claws.

“It's a blessed watch, clacker-fingers,” you retort. “Alright? It's from the Lady With Scales, and I guaran-fucking-tee you she knows better than either of us fuckwits about things like guilt or life and death decisions.”

This placates him somewhat. He isn't advancing on you at the moment, only leaning uncertainly like he wants to go forward and he wants to pull back, but he can't decide between attacking your sorry ass or flinching back in disgust.

“And that's enough for you?” he asks. “You just do like she says, like a loyal little barkbeast? What if she's _wrong_?”

“Then she's wrong. But, dude. Take a good long hard look at yourself. We're just two regular schmucks caught up in things we don't really understand, and she's a powerful magical justice ghost. Can you honestly say that you could make the call better than her?”

“I don't... fuck, I don't know,” he says bitterly. He lowers his claws, gives the watch a final hostile look. “How does it work?”

“I don't know yet. She said I'd definitely know when the time comes.” You shrug. “I suppose this is all about faith and all that crap. I don't know, I'm just along for the ride. I'll come and tell you when it's time.”

“And then we...” He makes a little snipping motion with his claw, then winces.

“Yeah...”

After that, the conversation doesn't so much trail off as it crawls into a ditch and dies a thankless ignoble death, only for its corpse to bloat and explode, sprinkling gore onto the shiny new shoes of the unlucky bastard to pass by it at the wrong moment. You abscond soon after.

 

*

 

It's nearly sunset by the time you get back the Derse. The village roads are empty and quiet. It's dinner time right about now. Derse isn't exactly a swank social hotspot even at the best of times, but it is absolutely dead at this time of day.

You only come across one other person, as you round a corner and nearly plow right into him. You mumble an apology.

“That's quite alright, young man,” he replies, adjusting his crisp white suit and giving you a paternal smile. “No damage done.”

Then he tips his hat at you and walks on.

You, on the other hand, feel a jolt as he passes by you.

On an impulse you can't identify, you take out the watch. When you flip open the cap, the longest arm is moving with every tick.

The Lady's voice tickles at your brain, and you can sense a smile from her, a wide hungry grin stretching from one corner of your mind to the other.

**That one, Dave. His time's up. Make him pay.**

 


	2. “Grandmother, what big teeth you have got!”

 You are woken up by a crick in your neck and a foreign pressure against the side of your head. You have a very heavy pillow sitting on the side of your head. You think maybe you put it there to block out the bright morning light, but when you move, it falls to the ground alongside a book, a jar and various other small objects gathered from around your room.

There is someone sitting in your chair and knitting.

“Rose, did you just stack shit on my head to wake me up?” you ask, and reach down next to your bed for your shades, putting them on.

The room dims to manageable levels and you see that your guess wasn't wrong. Rose is sitting there, making a pretty impressive inroad on a sweater.

“Did I?” she says thoughtfully, like what you're telling her is a complete surprise. Her knitting needles don't even slow down.

“The hell you doing in my room, anyway,” you grouse, “last time I checked, librarians don't make house calls.”

“Brother dear, we live in the same house,” she replies serenely.

“...Look, it's like five in the morning, the burn master doesn't get in until nine or breakfast, whichever comes first.”

“Mm. In that case, the burn master is running a bit late.” She takes out her elegant pocket watch—you recognize it, you know it's not the one you're thinking of, but you nearly flinch at the sight of it anyway—and makes a show of checking the time. “Ah yes, it is ten past nine o'clock. Where do I lodge my complaint?”

“Please refer to my secretary,” you mutter, and sit up to grab the nearest specimen jar. There's a squirrel floating in formaldehyde inside. “Here she is. Mrs. Haversham-Nutmoore will be glad to address any issues you might have with this office, just as soon as you allow her employer a brief pants-putting-on reprieve.”

“You do not require pants for this conversation, Dave. In fact, I prefer you don't have any.”

You make sure to raise an eyebrow as slowly, as pointedly and as noticeably as you possibly can.

“Oh, so all those conversations about my twisted sexual hang-ups, and you were projecting the whole time? Rose, Rose, Rose...”

“I did not mean to imply anything sexual, which makes it all the more interesting that you have. No, I meant that without pants, you can't jump out of a window and end our conversation prematurely.”

Shit, she must really want to talk to you about something, usually she'd spend at least half an hour harping on the sex thing. You probably won't like it, either, given how she assumes you'd jump out a window to avoid it (you did that _once_ , when you were younger. Once. Nobody in this family ever lets anyone else live down anything. Except Roxy, but she's shameless, so she doesn't count.)

“We all couldn't help but notice your absence at dinner last night,” she says.

“Dammit, Rose, since when are we so clingy? Can't a guy have some space to stretch his wings, leave the nest once in awhile? Maybe I was just taking a short flight around the neighborhood, scouting me some hot feathery ass. It's hard to fly with the whole familial unit on my back. I'm a majestic fucking eagle, Rose, not a packing mule.”

“That was quite a monologue. Now you've made me curious about what you're going to say when I actually get to the crux of the issue.”

“Okay, other than missing dinner, I don't know what else I might have done. Unless I've developed some new sleepwalking habit, but you don't take nearly as much interest in Roxy's nightly perambulations, so I don't know why you'd take an interest in mine.”

“Dave, the three of us have been talking--”

“One of the sure signs of the impending apocalypse--”

“--And we decided we want to meet your new paramour.”

You stare. You like to think you're giving Rose a blank, unreadable look, but no, you just stare.

“I gotta say, sis, that's one impressive jump to conclusion you just did. Shit was impressive, wish I had a photo of it. That's really a story to tell the imaginary grandkids me and my fictional wife will be having, huddled around a warm fireplace drinking cocoa. This day will live through posterity. Thank you, Rose, for giving us our first family tradition.”

“I think excessive verbosity is our first family tradition. But my point still stands. We'd like to meet her, Dave. Or him. They? Xe?”

“I didn't even know that last one was a word until now. I'm a complex guy with a multifaceted personality and a plurality of interests, Rose. Stop reducing me to a penis. Nookie isn't my only conceivable motivation for missing dinner.”

“You know how much Roxy cares about these family dinners.”

“I know.”

“You know how much it upsets her when one of us doesn't participate.”

“I _know_.”

“Then if it wasn't a new romantic pursuit, what could have possibly made you come in so late last night?”

“It was stuff. Important stuff. I can do stuff that's important, you guys aren't the only ones allowed to have things going on.”

“Dave.”

“Rose.”

She look at you with sternly, but you maintain your impenetrable facade of coolness long enough for her to get bored and look away.

“Very well, then. What important errand did you have to run in the south side of Derse?” she asks.

You very calmly try not to look in the direction of your pants. Not that you want to jump out the window ( _yet_ ), but the watch is still in the pocket of your pants.

Then you very very calmly reason a few things through.

Rose probably didn't use her eldritch nethermajyyks to divine your location. She probably saw you through the window last night, coming from the opposite of your usual direction.

Rose can't possibly know about the watch, or she would have started hinting about gifts from secret admirers at some point in the conversation.

Rose probably doesn't know you followed some guy back to his house and proceeded to watch him through the windows like a creep.

Therefore, you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

“Just--”

“Stuff,” she says at the same time as you. “Yes, I am beginning to grasp the pattern.”

“Great, I'm so happy for you. But could you grasp it in another room while I get dressed? I smell breakfast, and I'm already late for work.”

“Ah, and we all know how indispensable you truly are at work,” Rose rolls her eyes. “Why, without you, who else would shamelessly exploit their employee privileges in order to put out leaflets of purposefully dubious quality?”

“Damn right. I'm so glad you know me so well. Now get out of my room.”

Rose leaves with minimal fuss after that, probably because she herself should be at work soon. It takes half an hour to walk from Derse to Skaia, and even if she doesn't hitch a ride, she'll still be on time for work. You, on the other hand, are going to be late no matter how much you hurry, so you decide not to bother. The boss isn't exactly the most perceptive individual. If he were, he would have noticed years ago that you are using his press for your own purposes.

 

*

 

It's a good thing you gave up on being on time, because you decide to take a detour to Karkat's place.

He's in the middle of rearranging his furniture, by which you mostly mean the junk which make up his pile, and he's so busy muttering to himself that he doesn't even notice you at first.

“Love what you're doing with the place,” you call out by way of greeting.

He whips his head up so fast that he hits a horn against the underside of the bridge. He lets loose an impressive string of profanities.

“What are you doing skulking around the woods?” he demands angrily, probably to cover for his humiliation.

“Bit hypocritical coming from you, don't you think?” you snort. “You know why I'm here, ragemuffin. It's not like I got any other reason to be traipsing through the woods.”

“For all I know, you're traipsing through the woods in search of some unsuspecting traveler to hideously axe-murder,” he says.

You hesitate on the answer for a fraction of a second too long, but it's all Karkat needs to work himself up in a lather.

“Oh shit, it's happened,” he says with alarm. “The stupid watch actually gave you a name.”

“It's not a name, exactly--”

“Then how the fuck do you know who to kill?”

“It pointed him out to me last night as I was heading ho-- Dude, are you hyperventilating right now?”

“No!” he yells back at you, but it's very hard to believe him when he's wheezing like a punctured pig's bladder getting pressed underfoot by a large, persistent gentleman with highly specific hobbies.

You've been holding it together fine until now, because that's just the kind of dude you are, but the way he's freaking out right now is starting to get to you a bit. Not that you'd ever freak out like him right now, holy shit, what even is this. He is flipping his shit like he's getting paid his weight in gold to produce the perfect shit-flipping maneuver.

“Dude, I'm gonna need you to calm down,” you say, attempting to pat his shoulder as least awkwardly as you can. “Can I get you something? A glass of water? A pillow to scream in? A slap on the face?”

“Fuck you, psychotic piss-swigger, you're not my moirail,” he hisses. He doesn't look any calmer, but now he's leaning more towards angry than panicky, so you'll take what you can get. “I'm having second thoughts about this.”

“Yeah?” you mumble. “So, that's it, then, huh? Resigned to spending your whole life as a crab-lizard. I bet you're looking forward to settling down and fixing up the place, maybe plant a nice vegetable garden. I hear growing tomatoes is good for your blood pressure, so you might want to look into that. Won't prevent anyone else from having a heart attack when they discover an abomination against nature is living under the bridge they're trying to cross, but that's just the hazards of making an omelet. At least it'll taste better with tomatoes."

"Ugh, just shut your squawking face-gash, will you?" Karkat passed a pincer over his face, but it's a poor substitute for a hand. "I've never... done this before."

"Yeah, no kidding. Do you think I have? But the Lady's legit, alright? They don't let just anyone have a shrine. I think there's a building permit required, or something."

“How legit are we talking here?” he asks. “Legit as in 'yeah, sure, dealing with her never got anyone messily killed by raging mobs carrying torches and pitchforks' or legit as in 'well, we won't bother to verify this shit, we'll just go on trust and assume she isn't fucking with people for shits and giggles'? Because I don't think incorporeal spirits have to apply for a license before they start fucking around with the living.”

“Look, you don't exactly have a cornucopia of choices here,” you point out. “You can play it by ear if you want, but I'd much rather follow the chick who knows how to read a music sheet, you follow?”

“Unfortunately, I do,” he grumbles.

“But tell you what. I'll swing by the library after work. Out of all the suckers she got to be her errand boys, I bet at least one of them knew how to use a pen. If there's anything down on paper about her, that's where it'll be. Cool with that?”

“Yes, do that,” he says. Bossy as hell, as if he wasn't the one having a meltdown earlier.

With nothing more to say, you break off and head for Skaia. You arrive for work so late, that your boss thinks you're just returning from lunch.

 

*

 

The Skaia Library is housed in the sort of building that gargoyles would take one look at, and then wince. It's an old building with only two stories, but it compensates for it through sheer sprawl. Its facade manages to look so overwrought in its attempt at being gothic, that you sort of respect the architect for having such a clear vision of what they wanted and committing to it so deeply. There is such a sincerity in their dedication that it manages to swing right into self-parody.

Between that and the fact that the Skaia Library boasts one of the largest collections of tomes about Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, you're not the least bit surprised Rose decided she wanted to work here.

You walk in to see Kanaya at the reference desk. She looks surprised to see you.

“Rose isn't here,” she informs you after you exchange greetings.

“Nah, wasn't expecting her to be.” You shrug with one shoulder, leaning against the desk. Rose is probably well on her way back home, where she will once again spend the evening ruminating on your possible whereabouts and coming up with no doubt countless theories about your absence. You're practically doing her a favor. Girl needs her entertainment. There's nothing more dangerous than a bored Lalonde.

“Wasn't expecting, or hoping she wasn't here?” Kanaya asks with an elegant raise of the eyebrow.

“You wound me, Kanaya, you really do. How dare you imply my heart does not swell with brotherly affection at the mere thought of seeing my dear, sweet, beloved sister whenever possible?”

“Oh my, it appears I was quite callous and disrespectful towards your human familial structure,” she sighs insincerely. “I must make up for my egregious error. How may I help you?”

“Does this library have any information on magic ghost spirits who boss around lowly humans?”

“A specific one, or just in general?”

“How about both?”

After further negotiations, in which Kanaya swears to abide by librarian-patron confidentiality and not tell Rose why you were here, and an additional conversation in which she assures you that librarian-patron confidentiality is totes a real thing and not something she pulled out of her ass, you are guided to the appropriate section in the library.

Though there isn't much about the Lady With Scales specifically, you manage to find a couple of books on related subjects, and you decide to take them home with you.

You're at the desk, waiting for Kanaya to finish your paperwork so you can go home and hopefully not be late for dinner, when you're startled by a white suited man appearing next to you.

“Kanaya,” he says with a personable smile, “do see me in my office as soon as you finish here, will you, dear? I have some matters to discuss with you.”

You thank your lucky drawers you're too shocked to actually show any emotion, because the man then turns towards you and nods in greeting before turning around and sedately walking away. You're not sure he recognized you. Probably not, why would he recognize some kid he bumped into the other night? But it's shocking to meet him again so soon. You weren't braced for it.

“Kanaya, who was that?” you ask, and you probably don't sound as calm and casual as you would like, because she looks at you oddly.

“Doctor Scratch,” she says. “He's head librarian. Why? Is something the matter?”

“No, thought he was someone else,” you say. “Are we done here?”

She looks like she doesn't quite believe you, but she doesn't press you for details either. When you're about to leave though, she stops you and leans close with a concerned look on her face.

“Dave, there is no way I can think of to make this question sound less strange when spoken out loud,” she says, “so I will just come out with it. Has some sort of preternatural being given you a quest to carry out?”

“Yeah, you caught me, Kan. You have correctly perceived the terrible burden I carry as the heroic knight sent forth to dispense justice into a lawless world, help those who cannot help themselves, and help kittens down from trees. As you have cunningly deduced my secret, you must now join me on my travels as my sassy but always devastatingly sexy rainbow drinker companion. Are you ready for this awesome responsibility?”

She purses her lips at you.

“Yes, alright, that was a ridiculous assumption on my part,” she says. “But can you blame me? You're not exactly the bookish type.”

“Research,” you say smoothly. “For my illustrated serial. Sir Bro and Healer Jeff.”

“Ah, yes. Rose brought over a few of your leaflets one day. She also told me you misappropriate your employer's resources to create them.”

“Like I'm the only one. Rose told me what you and her get up to in the back rooms.”

She blushes a deep green.

“She told you about that?” she asks.

“About the necromancy and the demon summoning shit, what did you think I was talking about?” But you know exactly what she was talking about, so you wave your hand in a halting gesture. You do not need that mental image of your sister, you _really_ don't.

Kanaya coughs into her palm.

“Yes, well,” she says, casting around for a different subject, “what I don't understand is why you would go through the effort of commandeering an entire printing press just to put out a series of intentionally-dreadful illustrations which only the lowest common denominators will enjoy, especially since I understand you charge a pittance for each issue.”

“That's exactly the point, vampire mama. I do it for the sheer ironic genius of it.”

“Yes, Rose has also told me of you misappropriation of the word 'irony'.” She sighs.

You smirk. “All for a good cause.”

 

*

 

You're in time for dinner, despite your detour to the library, and Roxy is appeased. Everybody takes turns making oblique comments about your absence the other night and speculating as if you're not even there. You engage in some banter, but your heart really isn't in it, and you leave the table as soon as you can.

You go up to your room and skim through the books for a bit. You find some things that seem relevant to your situation, but you can't really concentrate on anything. When it's quiet, you hear the ticking in your head, a subtle but constant reminder of what you need to do.

“Tomorrow,” you whisper to the watch. “I'll do it tomorrow.”

There's a lot of time until tomorrow. There is a whole night, hours and hours in which you don't have to think about it. You sleep fine. You don't have nightmares at all, and that worries you a bit in the morning, but you chastise yourself that it does. You're not doing anything wrong. Justice by definition is right.

 

*

 

It's your day off, so you don't really have to hurry anywhere. You have breakfast and then go to visit Karkat.

You find him gnawing on a ferret.

“What were you, raised in a barn? At least raise your pinky like a well-bred motherfucker.” The words are out of your mouth before it even occurs to you it's kind of assholish to make fun of a guy who doesn't have hands. Karkat glares at you. There's blood dripping over his chin, and on his fangs when he sneers at you. The smell isn't very pleasant either.

“Fuck you. What do you want?” he growls.

“We're not having this conversation while you're drenched in the blood of innocent forest dwelling creatures,” you reply. “Wash the ferret off your face, I got something for you.”

He doesn't throw the animal corpse away, he just stashes it in his burrow under the bridge, probably for later. You feel like a heel for not bringing him any leftovers from breakfast, but there's nothing you can do about it right now.

He washes up in the stream, grumbling about humans and their delicate sensibilities. Whatever, if not wanting to see this kind of disturbing shit means you have delicate sensibilities, then you'll put on a lace bonnet and proclaim yourself the daintiest fucker this side of bloomer town.

There's still pinkish water left on his chin when he's done, so you hand him your handkerchief. Karkat accepts it, though with a resentful glare. He grabs it delicately in one pincer, and dabs at his face.

“I brought some books,” you tell him. “Some research for your downtime. There's a bit about the Lady With Scales in this one, but the other is a bit more detailed on how this questing thing usually works. I bookmarked the pages for you.”

You bookmarked the books with some fairly thick wedges of wood from your brother's workshop. You figured handling pages with claws isn't easy, and you don't want to get in trouble with Kanaya if he damages the books.

“Put them in there,” he says, pointing to his pile.

“Next to the ferret? Dude, these are library books, I'm pretty sure I'll get fined if I bring them back smelling like gore.”

“Did I ask you to interrupt my breakfast? No, no I fucking didn't. Put them there and shut up.”

You do as he says. He returns your handkerchief.

There's a long moment of incredibly awkward silence.

“The guy's name is Scratch,” you blurt out.

“What?”

“The guy we're supposed to, uh... he's called Doctor Scratch.”

Karkat winces.

“Why did you have to tell me that?” he asks, sounding not even a bit angry.

“He did something to deserve this, Karkat. You need to remember that. He did something to deserve it. He's guilty.”

Karkat shakes his head, but doesn't argue. “Yeah. Okay. When are we doing this?”

“A week from today.”

“Does it have to be so soon?”

“Yes, before you chicken out on me. And also because that's my day off.”

“Oh, well, as long as it's so _convenient_ for you,” he mutters.

“The guy lives in Derse, too,” you say, ignoring his outburst. “We could snatch him on the way back, assuming he'll be on foot.”

“Brilliant, absolutely fucking brilliant,” Karkat hisses. “And once people start missing him and figure out that the last place he was seen was in these woods, what the hell do you think is going to happen then, o brilliant mastermind?”

You wince.

“The villagers are going to polish their pitchforks and make a beeline straight for my currently scaly ass!” he continues.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, don't shit where you eat.” You wave your hand to cut him off. “Then we're going to have to get him in Skaia.”

“Why not in Derse?”

“Are you kidding me? It's a small village. Everybody's in everybody else's business all the fucking time, like nosiness is a national sport. You can't sneeze in one end of the village without everybody on the other end already knowing you've got a cold. No, we're doing this in the city. Lots of buildings, places to hide, escape routes... I'll follow the guy around, get a feel for his routine, and then we'll hash out a plan. That cool with you?”

“Yeah, maybe we'll also hash out how you're going to sneak a disgusting troll beast into a crowded city unseen,” Karkat says.

“I'll figure something out,” you promise.

“Just keep me informed,” he says, frowning at you. He doesn't want to ask nicely. It would be kind of douchey of you to demand he does.

“Sure, dude. Meet you tomorrow. Same time, same place. Unless your social calendar is too full?”

He growls and waves a pincer at your face. You laugh.

The next day, you bring pastries, still warm from the baker's. Karkat doesn't exactly thank you, but he's a lot less grouchy for a while.

 

*

 

You spend the week having breakfast with Karkat and following Scratch around.

You don't learn much about either one of them.

Karkat is a private person, not one to share without reason, but it's easy to talk to him, especially when he won't shut up. You bring him anything you can sneak out of the house unnoticed: bacon one day, boiled eggs the next, cheese and ham skimmed from the pantry. He eats the food you bring him as if he's afraid you'll snatch it back from him, and he criticizes your ideas as if he fears they might be better than his.

You bring a map of Skaia, also generously provided by the Skaia Library, and over breakfast, you show him Scratch's route to and from the library. Other than that, the only place he visits is a small cafe, where he takes lunch, usually accompanied by another well-dressed gentleman.

Karkat argues with you about everything. You suggest an alleyway, he points out how difficult it would be to maneuver in such a tight space. You propose a hiding spot, he shows you how easily it is to get cornered in it. When you make an admittedly stupid suggestion about sneaking him into the city at night to prepare for an ambush on Scratch the next day, he spends half an hour eloquently chewing you out for proposing such a pointlessly risky operation, explaining how every moment spent in the city increases the chance of discovery exponentially.

His skills of nitpicking are impressive, not just for the amount of annoyance they cause you, but also because of how easily he spots every hole in your plans.

But by the fifth day, you've argued over everything that could possibly warrant arguing. You're going over the final details—the map is laid out on the stone banister of the bridge as the two of you eat muffins—when he finally gives a last sigh and deems the plan “acceptable”.

“Did you even figure out what this guy did?” he asks.

No, as a matter of fact you did not.

Doctor Scratch is possibly the most bland and inoffensive man you've ever had the misfortune of stalking (he's also the only person you've ever had the misfortune of stalking, but even if that list had more than one name on it, this would still be his defining characteristic). He is, and you shudder just thinking this word, _respectable_. He has a respectable job, a respectable wardrobe, lives in a respectable house and in the evening, sits in his respectable armchair and reads a respectable newspaper. It irritates you, how good this guy is at doing everything just right.

When you explain this to Karkat, he makes a dismissive sound.

“Bullshit. He's hiding something,” the troll says. “Everybody is a fuck up in some way.”

“That's a really heartwarming sentiment,” you reply, but you agree. He's hiding something. You try not to think too deeply on whether whatever he's hiding is worth killing over. Not your department.

“So what was your fuck up?” you ask instead.

Karkat narrows his eyes at you.

“I told you on the first day, didn't I? My failure to be a proper troll,” he replies evenly.

“Oh my god, that's such a cop-out,” you say. “Are you telling me that you were just going about your life, happily skipping along, when a fairy just poof, appears in front of you, attracted by the failure pheromones you emitted as a non-proper troll of the not-killing-people variety, and decides to fuck your specific shit up? How the hell do you even attract the attention of someone like that?”

“By not minding my own fucking business,” he says pointedly.

“Fine,” you snap, and roll up the map. “I need to get to work. Be at the meeting point tomorrow.”

“Fine,” he says as well, watching you gather your stuff.

Your annoyance fizzles over eventually, to be replaced by a vague feeling of dread for the next day.

You try not to think about it.

 

*

 

Every morning, without fail, your neighbor, a somewhat wily vendor, loads his wares into the back of his wagon and takes them to Skaia, to sell at the market.

This is significant for the fact that his wagon is covered.

You are already waiting on the side of the road, trying to stifle yawns, when he rolls on through the woods. It's much earlier than you're used to, barely even sunrise, but that's just how it goes. You can't make your own schedule when you're engaging in illicit activities.

“Howdy, neighbor,” you say as you wave at him. He stops the wagon when he reaches you. “Might I bother you for a ride?”

He invites you up in the driver's seat with him, and you thank him graciously. If he notices the fact that the back of the wagon dips just as you climb on, he doesn't do more than give you a puzzled look. He certainly doesn't go to the back to check on his pumpkins, because there is absolutely no reason to suspect a crabmonster might be stowing away among them. He urges on the horses and you arrive in Skaia shortly.

You ask him to stop a few streets away from the market, where the road passes between the river and a row of abandoned old houses. It's an old cobblestone road, fallen in disrepair, parallel to the main road beyond the houses and the river both. Half of it is has already crumbled away, cobbles long since having fallen down the steep incline that marks the riverbank. The river's low now, but during spring, this stretch of the shore floods, so the residents have long since fled.

If your neighbor notices anything strange about the way the wagon seems to shudder as you get off, he still doesn't say anything, because he still has no reason to suspect a crabmonster had been hiding among his pumpkins. He continues on his way, none the wiser.

Karkat ducks into a narrow space between two buildings. It's not quite an alleyway, on account of being wider than it is deep, and hidden from view only by an ugly shrub. It smells awful and it's muddy, even in the middle of summer, but you join him, just so nobody wonders what a nice young man is doing loitering by the river.

“Scratch should be passing by in another minute,” you inform Karkat.

You take the watch out even though it doesn't actually show the correct time. You hold it in your hand. It's warm, always warm, and humming.

“He's always early for work,” you add.

“They'll miss him,” Karkat says. “It would have been better to snatch him as he was leaving work.”

You agree, but this is an argument you've already settled. In the evening, by the time Scratch leaves the library, the streets are packed. But city folk love their morning snooze. It's quiet this time of day. The streets are eerily empty.

The wait passes in tense silence, and you're glad. You don't know what the hell kind of small talk is appropriate for waiting to murder a dude. You expected Karkat to have another freak out sometime around now, but his face is screwed up in concentration as he watches the road through the foliage of the shrub. His tail is coiled around him, but his spindly crab legs are braced against the ground, taut and ready to move.

“White suit,” Karkat whispers and nudges you.

“Yeah, I can see,” you whisper back. “That's him. Remember, you gotta be the one to kill him.”

A tight nod. “I remember.”

Scratch is approaching, walking down the road with a newspaper under his arm. Karkat tenses, coils tight, ready to spring.

There's something wrong. Your mouth tastes sour and sharp. When you swallow, your throat burns. Urgency in your mouth, aching against your palate.

Karkat is ready to pounce, pincers raised, shoulders set.

Tick, tock, tick, tock.

You don't even realize you've stepped out of the hiding spot until you're already in front of him.

“Sup.”

There's a click.

There's a gun.

Holy fucking crap, there's a gun and it's in Scratch's hand. You didn't even see him draw it.

“Good morning, young man,” Doctor Scratch says with a personable smile as he casually aims the muzzle of the white revolver towards your chest. “Quite the weather we've been having lately, wouldn't you say?”

Your mouth goes dry, but that's hardly a reason not to mouth off.

“Wouldn't say it's anything special, you know? Like, all this sun stuff, big fucking deal, we get it all year round, except now we get a lot more of it? Yawn. Been there, done that. Wake me up when weather's come up with some original shit.”

“I daresay a rain of hot lead is just the thing to shake you out of your ennui,” Doctor Scratch replies. “Now, why don't you be a good boy and tell me who sent you?”

“Sent me?”

“Come now, playing ignorant isn't befitting of such a... bright young lad.” He says it like a private joke, like he is silently laughing inside at your stupidity. “You have been following me. You know who I am. So tell me, who do you answer to? Is it Slick?”

It's your turn to laugh, out of nerves more than anything else. Spades Slick? The guy who conducts his job interviews by starting with a friendly poke to the liver with a nice sharp knife? Do you look completely off your fucking head?

“I assure you, this situation is far from humorous,” Scratch informs you calmly. “Now if you'll please--”

Karkat lunges out of the hiding spot before Scratch can finish the sentence. Pincers up, he emits a loud 'skreeeee' like a billion sore-throated crickets yelling imprecations.

He throws himself bodily at Scratch, who is caught off-guard. He doesn't have time to turn his gun on Karkat before a shot rings out, high and clear in the morning air. You look down, expecting to see blood bloom out of your clothes, but there's nothing.

Karkat and Scratch fall to the ground, struggling. Karkat has an advantage in sheer mass, but there's no method to his hits. He just flails around trying to hit whatever part of Scratch he can reach. He coils around Scratch, snake tail wrapping around his legs, even if the crab legs hinder him.

Scratch does not go down easily. He punches at Karkat's soft underbelly, his chest, his face. Any weak spot he can think of. Karkat will not concede, wrapping himself around Scratch. The hits do not deter him. They tumble together on the broken cobbles. The fight is eerily quiet, nothing but muffled gasps and the sound of fists hitting flesh.

The gun is on the ground. You pick it up, try to aim at Scratch. You can't shoot, you'll hit Karkat. You don't know what else to do, so you aim anyway.

Then Karkat manages to wrench him sideways somehow, and they both tumble off the road. Before you can react, they roll down the steep incline of the bank and splash into the water.

Fuck. Fuck, this is so bad.

You run down. There's splashing, a lot of it. You can't see who's winning, only that they're being dragged away by the current. You run along the river, try to catch up, not lose them from sight. They sink under the water, and you have to guess how fast they're going, where they might be. There are dark spots in the water that you fool yourself into thinking is them, but you reach a dead end eventually, a long building on the shore that you would need to go around.

By this point, you don't know if they're ahead you or behind, so you stop and you kneel in the mud, stricken by the realization that _you don't know what to do._ You and Karkat didn't plan for this.

Your heart is thumping like a whole herd of elephants and you're panting. You realize you're still holding the gun and throw it into the water. Only afterward do you look around to see if anybody saw you. Nobody's around, fortunately, but you still feel like a tool. What if someone saw you running along the river with a gun in your hand? The constables are going to get a call for sure.

You need to leave. Regroup, though that's a laughable choice of verb, considering there's only one of you.

Karkat's half crab, he can breathe underwater, can't he? The fairy couldn't have screwed him that royally, could she?

Shit.

You don't know. You just, you don't. You can't know.

You take out the watch. It's stuck again. You can't hear any ticking.

You don't know what this means.


	3. "I would go with you gladly, but I do not know how to get down.”

You hurt everywhere, inside and out, by the time to manage to drag yourself onto the shore. It's a job make even harder by the fact that you have pincers instead of proper hands. The dead weight you're carrying doesn't help much either.

Every breath feels like it's cutting your innards up, as if someone has replaced your lungs with bags of rusty nails, but you still keep breathing convulsively, like you're vomiting air.

You sputter and choke out water—oh god the taste is foul, what the fuck have people been throwing into this river—but you're alive. Unless you're in hell, which given the amount of pain you're experiencing right now might be a possibility, but you don't think you're lucky enough to be dead. You're the kind of bastard cursed to live a long and shitty life.

You crawl just far enough out of the water that the current won't drag you out again and then you just... take a moment, put your cheek down on the mud and try to breathe without causing yourself too much pain.

You're cold and miserable. Half your body is still in the water, your snake tail wrapped around Scratch's dead body so tightly that it's stiff and hard to remove. The half that's out of the water is wet and cold and muddy.

And it's not even _noon._ Why does this shit always happen to you?

Alright, you can't just sit here. Gathering up the last remains of your strength, you pull yourself higher up the shore. Crab legs sink into the soft earth and give you the leverage you need to haul yourself out of the water completely. Your tail is still stiff, and you have to sort of unwrap it manually. Scratch's corpse flops into the shallow water, on its back. His blank green eyes stare at the sky.

You're so tired right now. You've never killed anyone before, but you just feel numb. Hollowed out inside. You used to dream about honorable duels as a wriggler. Clean death with blood on your sickle. This was messy and hard and pointless.

You push the corpse back into the water. The current takes care of the rest.

You climb the riverbank until you reach flat ground, and you emerge onto a grassy area. You're confused at first, because you didn't think you were in the water long enough to get dragged out of the city. It felt like moments to you, brief snatches of seconds marked by panic.

But you're surrounded by grass and trees and bushes with bright, fat flowers weighing them down. It doesn't feel like a forest, exactly. Everything is too evenly spaced, too... conveniently pretty, you suppose. There's something just mildly off about this place. It's not until you look in the distance and you see the roof of a building, shining blindingly gold in the morning sunlight, that you realize you must be in a park or something.

You remember the map of Skaia in bits and pieces. The river definitely passed through a park, but this is the wrong direction for it. You try to recall what other green stretches the river passed through, but you only recall the splotches of green that Dave said belonged to the estates and gardens of Skaia's nobility.

So you must be in the highblood part of Skaia.

You are so not in the mood to deal with highblood bullshit right now that you could puke. You crawl under a bush, tucking yourself as small as your sore muscles will permit, and you just lie there for a while.

The daylight is making you drowsy. Your entire sleep cycle has been fucked sideways ever since the curse, and it doesn't help that after not getting a wink of sleep last night you went one on one with a librarian and almost drowned.

You just need a short rest. You're going to shut your eyes for a while and then figure something out.

You fall asleep much deeper than you expected, because the next time you open your eyes, it's starting to get dark.

You're cold and stiff, so you crawl out of your hiding spot and stretch.

You need to find a way out of here, out of this neighborhood and out of the city. If you can get to the road, you're going to find a sewer tunnel and take your chances with that.

There's a wending cobbled path heading in the general direction of the roof you saw in the distance. You follow it a little off the side, in case someone decides to take an evening stroll and you are required to make a quick dive for the bushes. In a bizarre twist of luck, you manage not to bump into any hostile highblood taking an evening stroll until you get pretty near the house.

If house is even the right word for this bloated monstrosity. Four stories high, and so wide that you can't see either end of it. The architectural style seems to be 'let's tack on a lot of ugly and flamboyant shit and then gild it all in a ridiculous wealth-wasting pissing contest'. There's sculptures and reliefs on the walls, especially around the windows, and while you don't exactly know much about art or architecture, you are willing to bet that people who do know about this kind of stuff would probably spontaneously combust and puke at the same time if they ever laid eyes on this clusterfuck.

By now, it's dark enough that the windows of the mansion are glowing with lamplight, but what you notice is actually the smell.

Oh dear sweet tentaclegods, it smells like bliss in your nose. It's faint, just a teasing hint of it when the wind shifts, but it's there. Someone somewhere is cooking something, and your entire digestion system takes notice of it. Your gut grinds out a long and painful growl that feels like it echoes around you for miles. You're hungry, for human food specifically. That bastard Strider spoiled you, is what's going on. You never had a problem with eating squirrels and pigeons raw before he came and inflicted his delicious savory human sustenance on you.

Your priorities undergo a quick reshuffling. You're not going to steal food, you assure yourself. You're just going to see where the smell is coming from .You're just curious. And anyway, if you are going to steal something, it's certainly from people who can afford it. But you're not.

This near the house, the carefully-manicured artificial wilderness recedes into neat geometric patterns. There are no more trees, only bushes, flowerbeds and cobbled paths with benches at even intervals. The smell is stronger as you approach the house. You're near enough now that you have to be careful not to step into the rectangles of light that the windows cast on the ground. You make your way almost completely around the building, off to the side.

You have to peer over a tall hedge to identify the source of the smell. Through a couple of open windows, you can hear banging of pots and snatches of conversations about boiling and ovens and doing things to food, so it's probably a safe guess that this is a kitchen.

By the sound of it, there must be at least a dozen people in there. As much as you're slobbering all over yourself like a pathetic barkbeast begging for scraps, there's virtually no chance that you'll be able to snatch up anything. Not that you would, but hypothetically speaking, you couldn't.

Now you're both hungry _and_ frustrated. What an amazing fucking idea this was.

You keep your head down and walk alongside the hedge. If you go around the house, you might find your way to the streets.

You're approaching a corner. It's quiet and dark. Only two windows show light, and the noises of the kitchen are far away. You inhale, trying to catch another last whiff of the food being cooked, but you sense nothing but damp night air.

You're so busy moping about the food you can't eat, that what follows in the next few seconds completely blindsides you.

Because if you were slightly more attentive, you might have noticed that high above you, someone opened a window and jumped out just as you were passing by. As things are, you really don't notice him until he lands neatly in front of you, flashing intermittently blue and red.

You begin making a startled yelp and choke it down quickly, so it ends up being an embarrassing nasal sound instead.

The other guy doesn't have nearly as much self-restraint, because he hisses out ' _oh shit_ '.

And then, before you can turn around and bolt, you feel yourself going tingly all over and leaving the ground against your will. You are swung upside-down in the air, and you can do nothing about it other than flail and shriek.

“No-- fuck-- put me down, put me down right this very moment, you gross slice of bile, I won't say it agai—oof! ”

You are dropped unceremoniously on the ground, though by sheer luck not on your head. You instead fall on your back and all the wind gets knocked out of you.

You weigh the pros and cons of just lying here until you're dead. Every ache in your body has flared up and to be fair, you're probably going to get killed anyway. You recognize psionics when you see them, and you are fully aware of how screwed that makes you.

“Okay, what the fuck,” the stranger says. “You can _talk_?”

You raise your head just enough to throw him a baleful look.

“Obviously, asswipe!” you reply. “Believe it or not, some people actually talk before engaging in assault!”

“Shut up, someone's going to hear you,” he says, and his eyes dart around nervously. They're different colors—blue and red, like his psionics.

“No, you shut up,” you brilliantly retort, but your voice is much lower.

For a few seconds, you both sit perfectly still and quiet, listening intently. When nothing happens for a while, he breathes a sigh of relief.

You take this opportunity to try picking yourself off the ground. Unfortunately, your lower half isn't cooperating. The snake tail flops weakly while your little crab legs wiggle in the air helplessly. You feel a new wave of resentment towards the stranger, both for being responsible for your situation and for witnessing your humiliation.

“Need some help?” he asks, not even bothering to hide his amusement.

“No, I do not need any fucking help. I think you did enough,” you retort.

You try to roll onto your side a few more times, with so little success that you are convinced the universe must be personally conspiring to grind you down to the most finely mortified powder possible.

“Dude, seriously, just ask for help,” the psionic says, going from amused to embarrassed by association.

“I don't need help from you!”

But after a few more abortive attempts at rolling over, you're ready to swallow your pride.

“Are you just going to stand there and stare like a complete tool?” you growl at him.

“Thought you didn't need help,” he snorts.

“No, I don't! But you're responsible for this, so maybe you should get off your ass and make it right,” you say.

He has the gall to actually laugh.

“Maybe if you say please,” he starts.

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“Fuck you.”

“Eh, close enough.”

You feel yourself being picked up by psionics again and plopped upright. You reorient yourself quickly, before you can fall over again and humiliate yourself any further.

“Thanks,” you grit out as you avoid his gaze and make a show of brushing yourself off. You don't think he hears you at first, but he chuckles low.

“Anytime,” he says.

Thankfully, with that embarrassing interlude over, you can move on to other things.

Like standing around awkwardly, waiting for the other to do something.

He's staring at you an awful lot.

“So what's your deal?” he asks suddenly.

“My deal?”

“Yeah, the whole animal mash nightmare thing,” he says, gesturing vaguely along your body. “What's up with that?”

“Why is it any of your business?” you bristle. “You've got some shame globes, knocking someone on their ass and then demanding their life story.”

He scoffs.

“Are you serious right now? Didn't anyone tell you who I am?” he says.

“...What?” Why would anyone tell you who he--

“Aren't you one of the staff?” he asks, starting to sound puzzled.

“Yeah,” you say a bit too quickly, because like fuck you're going to admit that you're trespassing. “Yeah I am.”

He doesn't look like he believes you, though.

“You're not on staff,” he states matter-of-factly.

“No! Yes, I am!” you insist.

“You're not.”

“Yes I fucking am!”

“Who hired you?”

You open your mouth and close it again. With all the trouble it's gotten you in, you decide it's better to keep it that way.

He snickers, like this is a game to him. Maybe it is. What the hell do you know about the assholes who live in this house?

“Oh god, please tell me you're here because you're trying to kill the witch,” he says. “That would be absolutely precious. She cursed you, right? And now you're back for your reveeeenge?” he draws out the last word mockingly. “You're here to use the monstrous crab claws that she bestowed on you to rip out her heart in some half-assed attempt at poetic justice?”

“What are you gibbering about, nookwaffle?” you scowl. “I was cursed by a fairy.”

“Then why do you want to kill the witch?”

“What the fuck-- _what witch_? What the hell are you even talking about?”

He gawks at you like you just sprouted a second head—which, granted, wouldn't up the weirdness quotient of your situation by very much.

“You're trespassing on the Baroness's estate,” he says.

Oh. The Baroness. You've heard about her. Your mind flies to the pastries Dave brought one morning, wrapped in crinkly paper with the red fork logo. Delicious pastries. Warm, moist, delectable pastries.

“The baking lady?” you ask.

“Yes, the baking lady,” the psionic snorts, voice laden with sarcasm. “That's totally her single and most important defining attribute.”

He turns around and starts walking away from the house. You sit there for a few moments, contemplating on the unbelievable rudeness of walking off in the middle of a conversation, before he looks over at you and gestures for you to follow.

“Come on, move it,” he says. “This isn't the best place to give you a schoolfeeding session.”

 

*

 

At least after dragging you along almost completely back the way you came, he has the minimal decency to tell you his name is Sollux Captor. You begrudgingly give him your own name, while also making sure he knows it's begrudging.

He also tells you some blood-curdling things about the Baroness, especially the kind of things she'd do to trespassers.

“She practically runs Skaia,” he says. “Not that city officials even mind, with the money she brings in. But the ones that aren't on her payroll or too terrified to do anything about her don't last long.”

“All this because she owns a chain of bakeries?”

“All this because she's a highblood and a psychopath,” he says, shaking his head. “Though I guess that's repeating myself.”

“So what's _your_ deal? You're probably not very scared of her if you're talking shit about her to perfect strangers.”

He stops in his tracks and eyeballs you.

“My deal is none of your beeswax,” he says after a long moment.

Huh. Struck a nerve?

“It just seems to me,” you continue undeterred, “that if you really thought she was so dangerous, you would have taken her out already. You have psionics. What does she have on that?”

“It's not what she has, it's what I do,” he says.

He walks right up to you and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

_What._

“Whoa, hold on, what are you...”

You trail off when he opens his shirt and you notice the bizarre pink glow on the right side of his torso.

“She gave me a second heart,” Sollux explains. “So I wouldn't die like her last 'pet'.” He spits out the last word like it's poison in his mouth.

The pink glow under his skin is pulsating softly. How did she do that, you wonder. Did she just kind of... reach in and...?

“I'm sorry,” you blurt out, almost without meaning to.

Sollux shrugs and pulls his shirt closed. His shoulders droop and he curls in on himself.

“It's not your fault,” he says. “But I can't do anything against her. She controls the heart and the heart controls me. All I'm allowed to do is just live. Forever.”

“God, that's so messed up,” you say in one long exhale. “And unfair.”

“Tell me about it,” Sollux snorts. “I could wipe the floor with her if I had the chance, just wreck her shit into the next calendar sweep. But instead I'm just going to be her lapdog, just sitting on my useless ass and getting pampered while having to watch her fuck up other people's shit for kicks.”

You lapse into silence again. Sollux stares at the ground, caught up in whatever self-loathing downward spiral thinking about the Baroness sent him on. You stare at Sollux, trying hard not to think about how hungry you are.

“So where are you dragging me off to?” you say. “Am I allowed to know, or are you just looking for a convenient place to stash my corpse and you want to keep it a surprise until we get there?”

Sollux snorts and starts buttoning up his shirt again.

“I wouldn't need to stash your corpse, I'd just throw you in the river from here,” he replies.

“Ugh. The river's how I got here in the first place. I'd rather you let me rot out in the open.”

“Well, I guess it's the least I could do,” Sollux says. He's not smiling, but at least he doesn't look at terminally depressed as a few moments ago. “No, I was actually going to check on my beehive. It's right down the hill.”

Indeed, once you reach the bottom of the hill, he points to the hollow of a tree. Large purple bees are milling around the opening, flying in pairs.

You're still hungry. It's the kind of thing that won't stop bugging you once you notice it.

“I don't suppose you could get some honey out of that thing,” you venture.

He scowls at you.

“ _You don't eat the mind honey!_ ” he says.

No, of course you don't, you think with a sigh. For a moment there you thought you were the kind of douchebag who was actually allowed to catch a break once in a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually hadn't intended for so much time to pass until I updated again. But, well... I got slammed with finals and dental problems at the same time. January was not a fun month for me. Anyway, this is technically only half of the chapter I wanted to write, but I am terrible at writing long chapters and generally prefer shorter but more frequent updates, so here we are. My apologies.


	4. Life went on as usual, and nothing further was said.

You find yourself back at the Lady's shrine.

You have no idea what you're doing here, quite frankly. But you don't know where else to go. You don't know what to do. You fucked up, you know you did.

In your head, you just keep replaying the struggle between Scratch and Karkat, and you keep coming up with ways you could have helped. Hindsight is a bitch, and right now she has her boot heel firmly pressed against your throat.

“Look, I'm not asking you to bail me out of this thing,” you say to the shrine. “I'm going to clean up my own mess. Just... I need to know that it's possible.”

The watch is no longer ticking in your head. You don't even sense anybody rifling through your mind like a rude guest pulling drawers open under the host's horrified gaze.

“Are you even still there?” you ask, punching the altar. Ow, bad call.

**Of course I am. Stop fretting so much. You accomplished your task.**

You flinch before you can help yourself. The voice appeared abruptly in your head, unaccompanied by the usual assault on your taste buds.

“Well, great. I'm glad you relayed your satisfaction by leaving me here to chat up a chunk of rock like a chump. Were you even paying attention until now?”

**Certainly I was paying attention. I was merely busy verifying that Scratch was dead. I can only stretch myself out so much, Dave.**

You huff.

“So Scratch is dead. Does that mean-- did you see Karkat? I mean, if you could see Scratch and Karkat was nearby...”

**He was alive at last glance.**

“Is he hurt? Where is he? Did anybody see him?”

**Dave, I am not your personal news service. If those questions concern you so much, find the answer on your own.**

“That's really fucking grateful of you, considering he was the one to off Scratch.”

**Yes, despite the fact that I had given this task to you! Go figure!**

There's a taste in your mouth now, sour and salty at the same time. A reprimand, tinged with annoyance.

“Was that against your rules or something? Does it not count because Karkat was involved?”

**Oh, nothing like that. Scratch is dead and that's all that matters. But I want you to be very aware of this, Dave. I am holding you responsible for everything I ask of you, not Karkat. I understand that he has his own reasons for helping you, and you deserve any help you can scrounge up! But if ever you fail, if ever you falter in your task, it is you personally that I will hold responsible, Dave Strider. I might not enjoy making you pay for it, but pay you will.**

You are momentarily rendered speechless by the Lady's words, and in those few moments, she retreats from your mind, leaving you with chills down your spine and a dry mouth. Worst date ever.

And Karkat's still missing.

 

*

 

You consider giving up on finding Karkat for about a fraction of a second before you realize what a douche move that would be. Running up and down the river would yield no result. Well, no, actually, considering the fact that you were running gun-in-hand earlier today, the result it would yield is you in a jail cell.

So you do what you've always done when you have a problem you can't tell anyone about. You go see Roxy about it.

It's been years since you actually visited her at work, and it's not just because you get the creeps every time you step inside Skaia's Institute for Study of the Incomprehemsible (sic, because the guy who engraved the placard by the door had done so while being drunk off his ass). It's not even because the dress sense of the wizard working there is so awful that you can't even come up with an ironic justification for it.

It's because Roxy's co-workers are utter tools.

You actually manage to get to the third floor where Roxy works before you run into one of the Amporas. To your dismay, it's Cronus. He comes out of a room carrying a fishbowl with a miniature thunderstorm raging inside it, just as you were about to round the corner. He notices you right away and oozes your way after making sure to slick back his hair and smooth down his eyebrows.

“Hullo there, chief, you can't be on this floor,” he tells you, blocking your path. “You lost?”

“I'm here on business, actually,” you reply, neatly sidestepping him when he tries to throw his arm over your shoulders.

“You're in luck then, champ,” he continues undeterred. “I'm what you might call an expert at this wizardly business.”

“Yeah?” you say, continuing down the hall with Cronus firmly on your heels. “Well, let's hope Roxy's cat doesn't hear about that, he might not like that you're taking credit for his work.”

You can actually hear him come to a halt behind you. He probably didn't expect you to have that little nugget of knowledge, but when Roxy gets drunk, she still likes to tell the story about how Cronus only passed his tier examination because her cat jumped on his workbench and scattered all his runestones. When the examinator passed through, he praised Cronus on his innovative thinking, completely unaware of the fact that the true genius behind Cronus's project was at that very moment sitting on the windowsill, licking his balls.

“Now, I don't know who the hell you are, but a body can get in a lot of trouble spreading that sort of slander,” Cronus says, jogging a little to catch up with you.

A door opens just ahead of you, narrowly missing your ankle. Another troll pokes his head out.

“He's Roxy's little brother, you half-wit.”

And now Ampora Redux has joined the show.

Eridan scowls at Cronus as the latter stares at you.

“No way,” Cronus sputters. “What the hell, last time I saw you you were a pimply-faced little guppy.”

“That didn't stop you from hittin' on him as I recall,” Eridan mutters.

“Yeah, well, I'm just saying,” Cronus says, giving you a look from head to toe. “You grew up _fiiiiine_.”

Okay, that was so sleazy it swung all the way back to impressive. You can't believe a real person is acting like this. Your mind shudders and cannot grasp the enormity of what a gargantuan dickbag this guy is, so you do the sensible thing and ignore his existence.

“Is Roxy around?” you ask Eridan.

“Yeah, she's in her workshop, doin' the maths for ol' Zazzerpan,” Eridan shrugs. “He's gettin' a bit near-sighted lately an' he says glasses are for the weak-willed an' feeble.” He huffily adjusts his own glasses as he says this. “But last time he wrote one instead a seven, we were scrapin' his lab assistant off the walls for the next month.”

“Oh my god--”

“Nah, it's fine,” Cronus assures you, “the fella survived. Think he runs a shoe shop now.”

“Haberdashery,” Eridan says. “Whole thing left him odd in the head.”

“Yeah, okay, thanks. Which way to the workshop?”

“I can walk you there,” Cronus offers.

“I'm sure you could,” you deadpan, then turn to Eridan. “Which way?”

“End a the hall, door on the left,” Eridan replies, while Cronus glares daggers at him.

As you leave, you hear an angry whisper of “Why you all gotta be like that, chief? What've I ever done to you?”

 

*

 

Roxy is hunched over her desk, chewing on the end of a pencil as she regards a piece of paper. She doesn't hear you open the door, but the many cats sitting around the room turn to look at you.

Between six cats, there are twenty-four pair of slitted eyes staring in your direction. The mutant cats are exactly as perturbing as you remember them to be. As far as you know, Roxy never managed to correctly replicate Jaspers, but she never had the heart to destroy the failed copies either. At the very least, she doesn't keep them at home anymore. They looks much better draped all over her room, with the weird wizard shit. You don't know what half of the strange contraptions are, and the things you do recognize are actually just kitschy wizard merch that Skaian vendors usually sell to gullible tourists.

You creep up on her and peer over her shoulder. She still doesn't notice you. The paper in front of her has whole crossed-out sections. The parts that are legible are incomprehensible to you, and not just because Roxy's handwriting gets increasingly sloppy towards the end.

“Nice hieroglyphs,” you say. Or at least you mean to. You get to “nice hierogly--” before all the wind is knocked out of you by the impact of Roxy's elbow into your gut.

You double over in pain.

“Oh my god! Oh my god, Davey, I'm so sorry, are you okay? Sit down, oh my god--”

Roxy jumps out of her seat and makes you sit down, frantically waving a handkerchief into your face like a fan. You shake your head (“I'm fine, Rox, calm your tits already”) and just concentrate on breathing until the pain subsides.

“Someone's feeling jumpy today,” you rasp.

“I work with Cronus, remember?”

“Vividly right now. The thought of him being on the receiving end of your elbow attack is making me feel a lot better.”

“Heh.” She frowns down at you. “Dave, seriously, what are you doing creeping around my workplace?”

You lick your lips nervously before you can catch yourself, and then you just school your features into an unreadable mask. Now you need to be careful that your voice doesn't shake.

“Roxy, I need your help with something.” Damn, that was definitely a tremor at the end. No, you know what, you just got elbowed in the stomach with the force of a billion pistons manned by bodybuilding giants on steroids. You earned that wobbly syllable and a half.

Roxy raises an eyebrow at your admission. She's always been you go-to whenever you got in trouble. You'd never go to Dirk, because you'd always wanted to impress him, and you'd rarely go to Rose, because you were always caught up in some kind of one-upmanship contest with her. But Roxy was always there to pull your ass out of the fire.

However, even when you got yourself into previously untapped amounts of shit, you never outright said that you needed her help. You guess it's a sign of either your newly-discovered maturity or the previously unknown fathoms of trouble you got yourself in.

“What's wrong?” she asks.

Okay, how do you phrase this now?

A friend and I were out for a stroll this morning, casually jumped a guy I'm pretty sure was a mobster and now my friend's missing. Why did you jump a mobster, Dave? Well, you know, just to kill him, but don't worry, we didn't know he was dangerous when we decided to do this, we just thought he was an innocent librarian.

Yeah, no.

“I lost a friend.”

Roxy's face screws up in sympathy. “Oh no--”

“Not lost him as a friend, I mean I literally, physically misplaced him and I don't know where he is.”

“Oh. Okay, that's an easy fix.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I can find him. You got anything of his?”

“Uh... not on me, but I could look.”

“Good. Now, does your friend actually want to be found by you?”

“Of course he does, what kind of question is that?”

Roxy narrows her eyes at you. “Dave, nobody just misplaces a friend. Friends aren't loose change. Whoops, I turned my pants upside down and they all fell out of my pocket! Looks like a few rolled under the dresser. Oh well, I'll look for them later.”

You roll your eyes at her, even though she can't see it.

“Is he in some kind of danger? Is he hiding? Is he lost?”

“Would knowing any of that actually help you find him?”

“Maybe. You never know with magic.”

You sigh, but in the end, Roxy's the wizard. You can't ask for help and then dig your heels in, it would be kind of a douchey thing to do.

“He fell in the river,” you tell her. “I don't even know if he's still alive. He might be in danger, I don't know. Maybe he washed up somewhere. If he did, I need to find him soon. _I_ need to find him, nobody else.”

Roxy nods thoughtfully.

“Don't worry, we'll find him. Just get me something of his, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Rox.”

Your voice is small and far-away. Roxy looks at you tenderly before ruffling your hair like she used to do when you were little.

 

*

 

For a pile of junk, Karkat's den is impressively well-organized. He builds cozy garbage homes like a pro, if such things could be made into careers. There are probably birds out there who would take one look at Karkat's pile of junk and give up ever trying to build a nest because nothing they could possibly produce could come close to Karkat's efforts.

Which is why you're particularly frustrated with yourself for not being able to find anything of Karkat's.

Oh, there's a lot of stuff there. Undoubtedly, there is a lot of stuff. You are drowning in stuff. Oceans of stuff are laid out before you, ready to swallow you up the moment you dare tread on it.

But it's obviously other people's stuff.

There's couch cushions and broken off chair legs and tattered drapes, but they're obviously human junk, not troll junk. You've been to Kanaya's place before, you know the feel of creepy organic furniture they prefer.

You also find various knick-knacks that might or might not belong to Karkat, but you're so unsure about it, that you'd rather not take them to Roxy and discover lately that oops, this actually belonged to dear old Mrs. Willikins down the street, haha, isn't this awkward?

Rifling under some of the junk you actually find a medium-sized wooden chest. It has large, solid handles on the side, and you pull it up on the pile of junk to take a better look at it.

It's not locked—of course it's not locked, Karkat couldn't hold a key if he wanted to—so you flip the lid open and peer inside.

There's the books you gave him in here. That's an encouraging sign. He promised to keep them safe, so it would make sense that he'd put them where he's keeping other things safe. If this chest doesn't contain his prized personal possessions, you're going to eat your hat. You're going to go out and buy one first, but you're definitely going to eat it.

You pull out the books and put them aside.

The first thing you find is a sickle, wrapped in rags. The blade is sharp, but it has the tell-tale nicks and scratches of a weapon used often and sharpened regularly. When you heft it, the handle fits into your hand comfortably. This is something he held and used, and probably not to cut grass.

There are a few more things in the chest, mostly trashy romance novels, but in the end, you wrap the sickle back in rags and take it with you.

On the way back to the Institute, you stop at a street vendor and buy some food. By the way your stomach is trying to get your attention, it's almost noon, and Roxy probably needs lunch soon as well.

You find her at her desk, fiddling with a miniature hourglass. She keeps flipping it upside-down. The sands keeps falling up. You have no clue if she's actually working on something or just messing around, but she stops when she sees you.

You put down the food on the desk, wrapped in brown paper but not enough to stop the tantalizing smells from wafting through the room, and she immediately puts the hourglass aside.

“The least I could do,” you shrug.

You drop the sickle off on a chair in a corner of the room, after stealing it from one of the cats.

Roxy sends you off down the hall to wash your hands, and by the time you're back, she's already eaten plenty of her meal and is eying yours.

You sit down to eat—with your hands, because Roxy's cutlery rules only apply in the house and vendor food is a special exception—and that's how several minutes pass before you say anything.

“I brought you the thing,” you say, “for the stuff.”

“Oh, the thing for the stuff, good,” she says, all while carefully inspecting a chicken bone for any little strip of meat that might have escaped her notice. “I'll get to doing the whatever to the thing so I can use it for the you know when I do the stuff.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

After you finish eating, you present her with the sickle. When she unpeels the rags and looks at it, she can't help but whistle appreciatively.

“Your friend must be one hell of a farmer,” she says, running a finger along the edge.

“Yep. That's him. He's farming it up all the time. Can get enough of that farming action. You should taste his tomatoes.”

She shakes her head, laughing quietly, but she doesn't say anything else.

“I've appropriated the Observatory for our purposes,” she tells you. “Zazzerpan thinks I'm doing the star charts.”

“During the day?”

“Dave, please remove your head from the inside of that poor pony's mouth. We're making glue out of it, nobody cares what the teeth look like.”

You snort.

She takes you up to the Observatory, which looks adequately arcane and mysterious. Someone actually went through the effort of painting phosphorescent stars on the ceiling, to match the golden stars on the tacky purple drapes hanging everywhere.

In the middle of the room, there is a table with a glass box on it. There are whirligigs and tubes attached to the glass box. Roxy tells you it's what she'll be using, and then explains what it does in highly technical terms. You don't really get it, but Roxy goes right up to it and open the side, putting the sickle in. It just barely fits, as long as she puts it in diagonally.

“This won't take half a moment,” Roxy assures you, and adjusts the knobs and levers on the glass box.

“Do your thing, Rox,” you reply, and lean against the wall to wait.

She turns towards you and grins, like she's about to say something.

She's distracted by a high-pitched whine emitting from the box. She looks back at it, momentarily confused.

Well, if she's confused, you're goddamn lost at sea like a blind seagull with no sense of direction.

“What's wrong?” you ask, before Roxy turns around and makes a dash for you.

“Get down--”

She leaps and tackles you to the ground.

The high-pitch noise rises until you can't hear it anymore and, simultaneously, the glass box explodes.

Your ears ring, and you're confused about why exactly you can only see purple, until Roxy climbs off you and her robes follow.

When you lift your head, you see a warped piece of metal embedded in the wall just above you. The room is full of smoke, and Roxy rushes you out the door before you can get a better look, but you're pretty sure there's nothing left of Karkat's sickle.

“What happened? Roxy, what happened?” you ask over and over again, while Roxy gives you a pained look. She keeps brushing off her robes, the purple stained brown and gray with debris.

“Thaumatic interference. Wherever your friend is, he must be near someone really powerful. Because that?” she jabs a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the Observatory door. “That isn't caused by just any hedgewitch with half the Sight and a quarter the Touch.”

You feel dizzy.

“What does it mean? Is he in danger?” you ask.

Roxy looks uncomfortable and uncertain.

“I don't know, Dave. He might not be. He probably isn't. This doesn't necessarily mean anything, okay?”

You slump against the wall behind you and slide to the floor.

You are completely and utterly useless and Karkat is probably in danger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is sort of an interlude and partly the reason I chopped chapter 3 in two. I wanted to fit in some Dave POV. Nothing exactly happens. But I got to introduce Roxy! So that alone was worth it.


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